President Rodrigo Duterte defended on Wednesday police who were accused of overkill during their drug raid in Ozamiz City, resulting to the death of 15 people, including Mayor Reynaldo Parojinog.

In an interview with reporters after an event at the Bureau of Internal Revenue headquarters in Quezon City, Duterte said it would be better to have enemies killed than the law enforcers.

"The police and the military should make sure that their enemies are dead. Otherwise, if the other guy can still pull the trigger, you will end up with a dead police or a dead military soldier," Duterte said.

Duterte recalled his meeting with local officials before when he warned them from engaging in illegal drugs.

"One time, I called for all of them (local executives)...three batches. I really told them, 'Do not do it. Do not do it because my order is to destroy the organizations'," Duterte said when asked if there were other local officials who could be the next target of the police.

Duterte said the campaign against narcotics was not picking one enemy at a time.

"You are up against an organization. Parojinog has been there and you can ask the ordinary citizen of Ozamiz," he said.

Parojinog was included in the list of "narcopoliticians" of the president.

He said there were policemen who died in Ozamiz when they went against Parojinog.

"They (Parojinogs) were running the city as if it was a feudal state of the family," the President said.

"And so my order to the military and the police and rightly so: to destroy the organization, both the supplier, the users and everybody connected with the organization because they keep alive the trade," he added. Celerina Monte/DMS